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what a great post. i’m jealous in a way. it takes me back to a time when i had hair. i used to go to this little shop called red’s. apparently the guy who used to own the shop was called red, so frank just kept the sign and let everyone call him red. same kind of thing, though. hot foam, atomizers, white sheets, and grumpy old guys talking about the weather. i miss that ritual.

I like that you can just check out a new stylist. I have short hair too but unfortunately, I can’t just try out someone new without risking my hair! When I moved here last year, I asked random women on the street with great cuts who did their hair. As a result, I ended up at a hairdresser which is sort of, kind of, somehow within a tattoo parlour. This is so not me – but I am still grateful to the lady in the gourmet deli who gave me the recommendation and told me to ignore the stripclub-esque steps up to the salon!

Great post Sart! In a way, your post and the accompanying pics mirror many of my sentiments about Italyâ€¦My general experience of going to Italy is that they are very neat, clean and house/business-proud, and feel strongly about preserving tradition. The shops, restaurants and barbers are always spotlessly clean but without looking sterile or losing character; moreover, they are great at preserving tradition in a beautiful unique way â€“ hence the atomisers instead of ordinary product bottles, wooden counters, and old coat hanger, and three towels per customer. This is something I always admired, coming from the UK where the culture is much more driven by money-making at all costs, and where standards of cleanliness and general pride in running your business aren’t that high. There are good sides to both approaches but life flows so much more gently in Italy and there is a unique charm in their preservation of the great old traditions and keeping things the way like as in the old saying â€˜if it ainâ€™t broke, donâ€™t fixâ€™.

I cut my own hair. Buzz it right off. I would pay to have someone do it if it weren’t for the fact that any barber I’ve found in NYC who doesn’t cost an arm and a leg likes to shave me head to make me look like I’m Puerto Rican. And I’m not. Just a nice Jewish boy from Brooklyn. If I could find a place like this I would jump on it; at least for a shave. Nothing beats a good barber shop shave.

About 12 years ago, I was in Aqaba, Jordan and sat with a friend from NZ while he got a shave after travelling for enough time to grow a scruffy beard and curly mop. Hot towels, lather in a cup, the straight razor, all of it. The conversations were in arabic so they could have been complaining about soccer (I mean football), the weather (HOT), politics (very doubtful, little restrictive in the part of the world). The barber was very serious and flourishy with his gestures to get the foam off of the razor between strokes.

The coolest part was next.

After the shave was done and foam washed off, he went back on the parts on the upper cheeks and plucked all those little stray hairs with that threading technique.

With some of the older gentlemen that had hair in their ears and nose, long pices of paper set on fire were used to singe them off.

beautiful post. i’m a girl but i love the sentiment of this post. and the comments too. i think it is good to change and innovate, but it is also good to keep one foot in the past and preserve the old fashioned way of doing certain things. new doesn’t always translate to beautiful. :)

The kicker is that the facial steaming is, like, part of the regular service.

When my partner came back from Ghana earlier this year, he was transformed into this spa-going dude who wanted facial’s all the time (praise be).

He’s back there for a few weeks right now, and I suspect the main purpose for this trip was to get some more pampering!

Even in an urban city like Montreal, it’s hard to find trained pros who are well-versed in the eccentric beauty of black skin and the challenges it can pose for men, in particular (what with all that shaving). I suspect it may be similar in New York, too.

Nice barbershop you went to, classic stile will I say.I think the two towels are there for saving the sheet from greasy hair and from the liquid in the atomizers when they spray it in your hair. Then of corse if you order shampooing, they use very likely a bottle with shampoo and water mixed, and start shampooing you directly in your chair, after the shampooing you have to bend forword into the the basin in front of you and shower of the lather, and after that, you nide a towel for you face. (But mayby the use the same stile (start) as the restaurants, whith a complite layed table when you arraving.)The littel pice of cotton in your neck is to save you from the tiny little hairs who falls down and bother your neck.

well its europe what do expect. everything still holds its genuine quality maybe u got to a barber, a butcher, a seamstress or a shoe polisher. and the ironic thing is that soceity is so filled with consumerism that the old things appear modenr in a way. and u have to admit the quality of coming toa REAL barber is that they love their job and they treat it a s craft and an art. you werent just another costumer, you were another chance at creating a masterpiece, another great work. im russian, and everything that can be done as i remeber was done from scratch and it better be good quality too. now i live in vancouver, but me and my parents still make thing slike wine and cottage cheese from scratch. thats the beautiy of culture.

There is a not dissimilar place in south London, near Tooting Bec. Two Italian brothers run the place, though they have a third chair (seemingly there simply to allow a space for an elderly friend to sit and read La Gazzetta della Sport). The only modern convenience is a small TV which is always tuned to some manner of horse racing. I imagine one could place a bet before (during?) one’s cut, though I have never mustered the nerve to inquire.

Adorable! Are you sure you didn’t get these two from central casting? The taller one looks more serious and businesslike and the smaller looks like he tells the jokes and keeps things light. It would be interesting to hear the history of these men and their shop if you ever go back.

My 84year old father has told me many stories of going to the local barber shop as a small boySitting and waiting for his turn for a short back and sidesOnly to be told by the barber‘walter bach, you don’t mind waiting do you while i do Mr Jones first .’ in Wales there are a lot of Jones’My fathers visits to the barber always took hoursBut he learnt a lot on those visits….These photos have that timeless quality A hint of the past in the future and present.The gravure of these shots is perfectand has made me smile and remember…

I am a girl and have never gone to a barber, but you make it sound so great.

I love reading this blog; you are so interested in the details of life. You slow down and look at things. I remember some one talking about William Faulkner going to their house and they asked him, “Did you see that?” and he said, “Oh my dear, I am a writer, I notice everything!”

You are in that same league.

Those touches like the three sheets/towels? they make life so pleasing, don’t they? These little things that make you feel so good, life is worth living and so interesting. So necessary in this world which makes us want to just run, run fast and consume.

It’s good to stop and look at the sign, at these old world barbers and all like them.

if ever you go to dubrovnik (croatia), check out the barber shop in the old town. its simply amazing and atmospheric. a couple of old men milling about, birds in cages chirping, always breezy.. if i weren’t female i would have patronized it.

Although I’m not sure Japanese barbers do these things, at my salon, my beautician places little plastic covers over my ears before she begins cutting. They look like two little shower caps. Additionally, most salons will give you a head and shoulder massage following the shampoo, but before beginning the cut. I love it!

Possibly my favourite post yet. Plus, it takes a bit of bottle to dive in to a Milanese barber. Next time you’re in Paris, you may want to check out Monsieur Alain, le maitre barbier, in the Marais (8, rue Saint Claude). He has a snappy (or should that be snippy?) sense of style, as do his extravagantly moustached clients. Why not let your hair grow out some more, and cultivate a ‘tache while you’re at it?

I am origanlly frm Germany , and I remember as a little kid there used to be a barbers shop like that run by an Italian family on the corner of the street.They used what would be some kind of helf shirt you would put on and then for the corners they had this cotton similar to your picture. Brings back alot of memories. They would always talk about soccer and had a small corner in the shop with old pictures and memrobilia.

I just love these not-trendy places that make us feel that somehow time just stopped.Here in SÃ£o paulo there is this old barber downtown that is very peculiar about his work, even though he tries to be updated so he can keep his public. Besides that, this post reminded me of a small town down South, where I met a barber who owned this barbershop, placed in this corner for 50 years. Every morning, he opens his business and go to the sidewalk with his brum to “catch up”. He probably doesn’t cut this much hair, but he knows everything that happens there.Lovely pictures!

Nowadays few italian men go to barber shops like this; no wait, not few men, rather aged man. In fact the classic barber shop does just “classic men haircut”, usually very short. So if you have long hair (or just if you have hair ;-)) or if you want kinda “fashion cut” you have to choose something else.And yes, unfortunately it is a dying art…

@cristina

so, Liut. Colombo, welcome in Milano! and if you’ll find any trace, let me know: maybe I won’t cut my hair, but I always wanted to try a old style shave cut! you know, the one with the hot towel, a lot of white and foaming cream…

To add to lewehrman’s comment, re: barber conventions in Jordan, when I was in Allepo, Syria in 2003 I had a shave and haircut from an 18-year-old barber who’d been working his father’s business since he was 12. In addition to everything lewehrman experienced, I was also subjected to a sort of calcium-like flat stone, which was rubbed over my face immediately after the shave. The residue from this vigorous application not only chaffed, but it also completely dried up my face and was more than a little uncomfortable. After three minutes of this, relief came in the form of a lemon-scented alcohol-like aftershave. Then the threading…With the traditional haircut the damage came to about $1 US.

This reminds me of that one shot you took of the barber napping in his chair one afternoon in Milan.

If I owned my own salon, I would do something similiar. I would be open on Saturdays, but not on Sundays (preserving the day for relaxation, as it’s also the Lord’s Day). However, I would be open on Saturdays and every other days. Only closing for a few hours on Monday (probably between 12-2) for a personal nap for myself and everyone else that I employed.)

It’s nice to read of others charming, oldtime traditions that still appear to be kept alive today.

With all of the oooh la la salons around, it is good to see an old fashion barber shop. I wish I could be there to smell the aromas and hear the sounds of these barbers do their “thang!” I think these kind of barbers should be in every neighborhood.

There are moments that only a dandy man like you can understand…wish to be a man in that moments..just for breathing that old style atmosphere full of Italian tradition..it’s an italian girl speaking..

When I was 6 years old, my father carried me to the barber shop.There was an horse shaped seat where the barber puts children not to make them screamed and to distract and make them enjoy the hair cutting, but it did not work good with me…because I used to cry all the time.A lady is a lady also when she is 6!

my dad has gone to a barber for many years where every cut takes 15 minutes. it doesn’t mantter if you have minimal hair (like my dad) or a full thick head! all cuts- 15 minutes. you can judge how long it is til your turn by counting who is ahead of you!

I just got a really miserable, cheap cut at a chain with Paul Mitchell, etc. (I got what I paid for) so I loved this post. The old school barber shops are a fun experience- much more personal and homey, if that makes sense. I loved the shot with the atomizers. And look, there’s you! What fun :)

In college I studied abroad in Kanazawa Japan. I took a ton of pictures and was fascinated by everything. I also got my hair cut. Apparently in Japan (or at least this was what I was told at the time in this area) the barbers are all closed on mondays–no explanations just you can’t get a haircut mondays. The other neat detail I remember was that they had a television in the shop behind the customer. It was only halfway through the haircut that I noticed that the entire broadcast was actually in reverse so as you sit in the chair and look into the mirror the reflection of the TV isn’t reversed–a small detail but very telling of the country as a whole a lot of the smallest details can be easily overlooked because they blend so well into the experience.

I remember the old barbershop at the same location for 50 years – the routine, the final trim with the straight razor. Howver you always had to ask the barber how his meds were – paranoid schizophrenia and shaky hands with a straight razor…alas he was finally hospitalized and the new owners soon sold out. Now have to look for another…

in istanbul especially during my childhood there were several musts in a traditional barbershop:-a classical stove with a traditional kettle sitting on top of it, boiling water (always) and that is no way shave related, that is for turkish tea. so you’d always have the steam whistle in the background.-a canary in the cage, i dont know why but old school barbers did love canaries-a lamp transistor radio, tuned to a traditional music radio station (only on weekends to footbal game broadcasts)

and the funny practise:you are taken to the barbershop by your dad, but you are way too small for the barber’s chair. they’d always have a sponge’n leather covered wooden piece which they place between the armrests of the barber chair and the kid sits on top of the piece, not the chair. then you’d be tall enough for the barber to operate.